On Tending the Vineyards of our Lives: Homily for the 13th Sunday After Pentecost and the 13th Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

1 Corinthians 16:13-24; Matthew 21:33-42

I sometimes hear from my students that they think that Jesus Christ was a very nice person who never said anything harsh or critical about anyone.  Those who say that are certainly poor students, for the gospels make quite clear that our Lord spoke prophetic words of judgment to those who corrupted the faith of Israel in their quest for worldly power through hypocrisy and self-righteousness.  As we interpret the parable in today’s gospel reading, we must recognize that its message applies not only to those of generations long past, but also to us.

            Our reading from St. Matthew’s gospel follows the Savior’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  After being hailed by the crowds as the conquering Messiah Who would cast out of the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom, He told the chief priests and Pharisees that tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the Kingdom of God before them, for they had disregarded the preaching of St. John the Baptist, even after notorious sinners had repented in response to his teaching.  They were like sons who had promised to work in their father’s vineyard, but then did not keep their word.

By virtue of their knowledge, teaching, and ministry, the religious leaders of the day had a deep obligation to serve God faithfully.  They had, however, become so corrupt that they were like the false prophets and wicked rulers described so often in the Old Testament.  Their predecessors had worshiped foreign gods, exploited the poor and weak, and killed those who dared to criticize them or stand in their way.   Christ identified His opponents in the days leading up to His crucifixion with those of previous generations who had thought nothing of murdering righteous people who truly spoke the word of the Lord.  He foretold His own death at the hands of those who would not even respect the Son of God in Whom all the promises to Abraham are fulfilled.  The chief priests and Pharisees knew that the Savior had told this and others parables against them, but they did not arrest Him at that time because they were afraid of the crowds of people who thought that He was a prophet.

            Because they rejected Him, the Lord said in the verse immediately following this reading, “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” (v. 44) Here He points to the coming of the Church in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, for those with no ancestral connection to Israel are now “grafted in” as branches of the olive tree whose roots extend back to the covenant with Abraham.  (Rom. 11: 17)  St. Paul warned Gentile Christians not to take pride in their status in relation to Jews who had rejected the Messiah, for “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” (11: 20-21)

            By faith in Christ, we have become the new tenants of the vineyard “who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”  Remember that that is precisely what the original tenants refused to do.  Instead of tending the vineyard and offering its fruit to their rightful owner, they wanted everything for themselves and even killed the son of the owner in order to take his inheritance.  We must read this passage as a reminder that embracing our membership in the Body of Christ requires offering all the blessings of life to Him.  It requires a refusal to distort our faith into a way of excusing ourselves from the exacting demands of accepting our high calling as those who have inherited by grace the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham in our Savior.  He is the vine and we are the branches, which means that we are organically united to Him and one another.  Our entire life in the world, then, must be taken up into His great Self-Offering on the Cross for our salvation.  Instead of being enslaved to getting what we want, we must die to self-centeredness as we learn to offer all the blessings of this life back to the Lord for Him to bless and multiply for the growth of His Kingdom as He sees fit.

            If we do not, we will fall into the same spiritual trap as the chief priests and Pharisees who rejected the Lord and handed him over to the Romans for crucifixion.   Instead of humbly accepting the great blessings of the law and the prophets, they used them to gain worldly power over other people.  They corrupted them in order to condemn the sins of others, while failing even to acknowledge their own.   They blinded themselves spiritually to the point that they not only failed to recognize their own Messiah, but actually wanted Him dead because He was such a threat to their desires.  We will do the same thing if we attempt to identify our Lord’s Kingdom with a nation, a race, or a culture; doing so makes it inevitable that we will see those who stand in the way of our worldly agendas as God’s enemies to be hated and condemned.  We will then become blind, not only to our own sins, but also to how even those the world tells us are our enemies bear the Lord’s image and likeness.  We will fail to see that how we treat them as Christ’s living icons is how we treat Him.    

As the Lord said in the parable, ‘“The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.’”  Of course, He was speaking of Himself.  As St. Paul wrote to the Gentile Christians of Ephesus, “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,  having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,  in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22)  The Hebrews of old were accountable for being faithful to what had been revealed to them.  Now we, who have the fullness of the promise and share in the life of Christ by grace, are responsible to a much higher standard.  We are responsible for living as those solidly grounded on the one true foundation of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, in Whose Kingdom the racial, national, and political divisions of this world are irrelevant.

If we do not so live, however, the consequences are as clear as the prophetic word He spoke to the chief priests and Pharisees:  “Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” ( v. 44)  If we do not share in the life of Christ, we will revert to being strangers and foreigners from the Lord’s vineyard.  We will have as little life in us as branches that have fallen off the tree.   

The only way to avoid such a fate is to live daily as those in communion with Christ.  The fruit of the vine finds its fulfillment in the wine that becomes His Blood.  We must offer all the fruits of our lives to the Savior in order to enter into the joy of His Kingdom.  Such an offering requires dying to self out of love for God and neighbor in a way that destroys self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and the tendency to use religion for worldly gain of any kind. It requires being so solidly rooted in the Lord that we become living icons of His holiness and grace, especially to those we find it very hard to love and serve. Though none of us is worthy of this high calling, it remains our vocation as new tenants of the vineyard to “give Him the fruits in their seasons.”  It is how we must live as those whose only foundation is the Savior Who fulfilled and extended the promises to Abraham even to people as unlikely as you and me.    

Humble Faith, Not Legalism: Homily for the 12 Sunday After Pentecost, the 12th Sunday of Matthew, and the After-Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos

1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Matthew 19:16-26

A common temptation for religious people is to fall into a form of a legalistic self-righteousness.  It is appealing to assume that what God requires may be boiled down to a simple code of behavior such that those who obey it earn a reward, while those who do not merit condemnation.  People who are not religious may certainly have their own forms of legalistic self-righteousness, but our immediate concern is to address our own temptations.  For the prideful attitude that we have somehow fulfilled all that God requires of us is simply deadly for the Christian life.

 

            The Jews of first-century Palestine typically viewed people like the rich young man in today’s gospel reading as those who were very pleasing to God.  Not only does the man claim that he has obeyed the Old Testament commandments, but his wealth was understood to be God’s blessing upon him as a righteous person.  That is why the disciples were astonished when Christ said that it was very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Perhaps this man was like a Christian today who lives according to the teachings of his church and is successful in his business and family life.  He was a model citizen of his community and surely knew that.

            The distance between conventional religious and cultural success and finding eternal life remains great, nonetheless.  Perhaps that is why the rich young man asked the Lord what he needed to do in order to gain eternal life.  He must have sensed that something was missing or that there was more required to enter into the Kingdom.  That is when the Savior gave him a challenge well outside of the man’s comfort zone:  “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  Since he loved his possessions, he went away sorrowful.  For the Lord gave him a requirement that exposed his deep love for material things and the status and comfort that they provide.

He revealed the man’s spiritual weakness and brokenness by challenging him personally and powerfully.  Remember that the Savior identified the greatest commandment as:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your mind…And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Matt. 22: 37-39) By giving away his beloved wealth to the poor and leaving behind his privileged position to follow Christ, the man would show that he truly loved God and neighbor.  Given his particular spiritual maladies, those steps were necessary for his healing.  He lacked the strength, however, to obey that command, which is why he went away in sorrow.  This fellow’s recognition of his weakness, however, did not necessarily cut him off from the hope of eternal life, for as Christ said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The contrast between this rich man and St. Paul is stark.  As he wrote in today’s epistle passage, St. Paul knew that he was “unfit to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”  Elsewhere he refers to himself as the chief of sinners upon whom God had mercy as an example of His overwhelming grace. (1 Tim. 1:15-16)  Before his conversion, Paul had been “faultless” in obeying the Old Testament law and a zealous Pharisee. (Philippians 3:6)  He had come to recognize, however, that the confidence he had had in his own religious achievements was simply garbage to be left behind when he embraced the true righteousness of God through faith in Christ.

As someone who had previously persecuted Christians, St. Paul simply acknowledges that “by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.”  He did not go away sorrowfully when the Lord appeared to him in blinding light on the road to Damascus with the words, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4)   He obeyed and said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” before being baptized and beginning his very unlikely ministry at the constant risk of his life.  Instead of trying to build on whatever righteousness he had achieved by obeying the Old Testament commandments, he threw himself entirely on the mercy of the Lord, trusting that the One Who died and rose again for the salvation of the world was able to heal his soul in ways that he had never been able to do through his own conventional religious observance.

St. Paul died as a martyr and his ministry involved deep struggles of so many kinds, including imprisonment, beatings, narrow escapes from death, and arguments with those who sought to corrupt and weaken the churches he had established.  Who would not look at this former Pharisee who became the great apostle to the Gentiles and say, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”? His unique and exalted ministry which has so profoundly shaped the Church to this day was not simply the achievement of a gifted religious personality.  It was the gracious blessing of God at work through a person who had no illusions about his own brokenness and weakness, who had learned not to trust in his own ability to earn anything from God.  His humility made it possible for God to work in him what Paul could never have accomplished on his own.

The Savior’s exacting statement to the rich young man was an invitation to acquire the same spiritual clarity about his life.  By revealing to him the weaknesses of his soul, Christ opened his eyes just a bit to the inadequacy of viewing his relationship with God in terms of a list of legal requirements to be checked off.  He needed much more than the legal advice of a rabbi who could clarify the expectations.  His inability to demonstrate his love for God and neighbor by obeying Christ’s command showed that he needed healing that he could not give himself.  He needed the God-Man Who conquers death through His glorious resurrection and makes us participants by grace in the life of the Holy Trinity.  He fulfills our ancient vocation to become like God in holiness by healing our souls in ways that a set of legal or moral standards never could.

Those who are so strongly tempted to trust in their worldly accomplishments and comforts, or in the admiration of others for their supposedly exemplary lives, often need a bold, shocking message or course of events to wake them up from their complacency.  If we will open the eyes of our hearts just a bit to the light of Christ, however, we will see that none of us may claim to have mastered God’s requirements or to earn our way into the Kingdom based on our good deeds.  Our calling is not simply to be religious or moral people, but truly to become brilliant with the divine glory.  Before such a high calling, we must not go away sorrowful due to our inadequacy, but should instead fall on our faces and voice the Jesus Prayer from the depths of our hearts.  We must obey as best we presently have the strength to do, using the awareness of our weakness to open ourselves more fully to our Lord’s grace through our humility. 

As we continue to celebrate the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, we should look to her as the best example of a humble, obedient person united to Christ in love.  She became the Living Temple of the Lord in a shockingly unconventional manner when she accepted the Savior into her life as His virgin mother. She did not go away in sorrow upon hearing the message of the Archangel, but said, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  She served Him the rest of her life, even standing by His Cross and going with the other women to anoint His body on the morning of Pascha.  In her “falling asleep,” she shows us that such a life of loving obedience leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, not through legalism, but by humble, complete receptivity to the grace of her Son, in Whom all things are possible.  Let us all follow her example for the healing of souls.

Personal Transfiguration in Holiness: Homily for the 11th Sunday After Pentecost, the 11th Sunday of Matthew, and the After-Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ

1 Corinthians 9:2-12; Matthew 18:23-35

There is a lot going on the life of the Church this time of year.  Even as we continue to celebrate our Lord’s Transfiguration, we prepare by fasting to observe the Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos during the coming week.  In order to enter into the good news proclaimed through these feasts, the eyes of our souls must be cleansed so that we will be able to behold and participate in the brilliant divine glory of our Lord.  We must become radiant with God’s gracious divine energies as we follow the Theotokos in uniting ourselves more fully to the Lord in holiness.  She was the first to receive Christ when she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” in response to the message of the Archangel that God had chosen her to become the virgin mother of His Son.  As we celebrate at her Dormition or “falling asleep,” she was also the first to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the Kingdom of Heaven, for her tomb was found empty three days after her death.      

             The Theotokos provides the best model of what it means for a human being to be transfigured by personal participation in the grace of God.  She freely chose to accept the Savior into her life in a unique way as His mother, and she knew the pain and joy of offering herself fully to the One Who conquered death by His own death and glorious resurrection.  She counted for nothing in the eyes of the kingdoms of this world, but gained the unique dignity of the Mother of God, His Living Temple, when she contained Him in her womb.  The Theotokos then made the rest of her life an ongoing offering to the Lord.  How fitting, then, that her own death became an icon of the promise of eternal life for those united to Christ in holiness. 

             Unfortunately, the world has too much religion that does not lead people to transfiguration in holiness.  If we think that Christianity provides simply theological ideas, moral precepts, or directions about how to conduct religious services, then we will fail to behold and participate in the glory of our Lord.  For all of those aspects of religion, as laudable as they may be, can be affirmed and practiced in ways that do not make us “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  Christ revealed His divine glory to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor so that they would know He is truly God and the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets of the Old Testament.  The voice of the Father proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased.  Hear Him.”  (Matt. 17:5)

             Unlike a prophet or teacher of law, the Savior did not come to provide instructions that would make us a bit more pious or moral.  The One Who revealed His divine glory in brilliant, blinding light came to make us shine in holiness like an iron left in the fire.  He came to transform us so that we may participate personally in His gracious divine energies in fulfillment of our basic human calling to become like God in holiness.  The Savior called His disciples to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48)  He cited the Psalms: “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6; Jn. 10:34)  While we remain human persons by nature, Christ enables us to become like Him by grace.  That is why theosis is an eternal process, for God’s holiness is truly infinite. 

            The point of our faith is not, then, simply to gain forgiveness for ourselves or anything else that we might want.  Like the wicked servant in today’s gospel reading, we will shut ourselves off from participating in the gracious mercy of the Lord if we think that forgiveness is something we may receive without being transformed personally.  That fellow begged for more time to pay his unbelievably large debt, and his master responded with shocking mercy, for he forgave the debt completely.  But instead of sharing the mercy that he had received, the servant then refused even to show patience with a fellow slave who owed him much less.  He then had the second fellow put into prison until he could pay.  When word of his actions reached the master, he had the first servant put in jail until he could repay the entirety of the massive amount he owed.  Christ concludes the parable with these challenging words, “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

            The Lord said that because refusing to forgive others is a clear sign of our refusal to become like God in holiness.  If we ask forgiveness for ourselves without extending it to others, we show that we are not interested in sharing in the life of our Lord by grace.  We demonstrate that we are not offering ourselves for transfiguration in holiness.  Instead, we become idolaters who worship a god in our own image who we think will give us what we want and make no demands that do not suit us.  Such corrupt views of religion will bring only greater darkness to our souls and enslave us further to passions such as hatred, judgement, and the refusal to forgive.  They make it impossible for us to be transfigured in holiness.

This temptation is especially dangerous because it is often appealing to convince ourselves that religion and the rest of life are entirely separate realms. We like to think that we meet our obligation to God by doing explicitly religious things at church or keeping a rule of prayer, fasting, and other spiritual disciplines.  Of course, we should offer ourselves to God in these ways.  They are vital means of opening ourselves to greater participation in the life of our Lord.  We will err grievously, however, if we hypocritically seek the mercy of the Savior while refusing to embody His mercy toward others whom we encounter in everyday life.  It is simply impossible to unite ourselves to the One Who said “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” from the Cross if we refuse to show mercy toward those who have offended us. If we try to do that, we will be in the false position of those who want one thing from God while giving the complete opposite to our neighbors.

The illumination and healing of our souls is an eternal process, for our goal is very high:  to become like God in holiness.  We should not despair when memories of the wrongs of others come to mind, when we have harsh feelings toward those who have wounded us, or when we cannot imagine how we could be reconciled with others with whom we have a broken relationship.  These are signs that we live in a world of corruption and need further healing for our souls.  Our choice is either to open our hearts to Christ for greater participation in His mercy or to harden them by embracing hatred and judgment.  The process of our transfiguration must begin by opening the darkened places in our hearts to His brilliant light as best we presently can.  We do that when we pray for God to bless our enemies and to forgive our sins by their prayers.  We do that when we mindfully refuse to dwell on the wrongs of others or to speak ill of them.  We do that when we go out of our way to help them.  As we struggle to show them the same mercy that we ask of Christ, we will grow in humble awareness of our own brokenness and dependence upon His grace for our healing.

This is the path that we must all follow if we are to become transfigured in holiness through personal participation in the life of our Savior.  In her Dormition, the Theotokos shows us that such a life leads to the eternal joy of the Kingdom of God. In order for us to follow her holy example, we must begin with the humble forgiveness of those who know that they are never in a position to condemn others.  Instead, we must become living icons of the brilliant mercy that we have received. That is how we may become truly human in God’s image and likeness by participating personally in the Savior’s healing of our corrupt humanity.    

Staying Grounded on our True Foundation: Homily for "St. Timon Sunday" in the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America and the 9th Sunday After Pentecost and the 9th Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

1 Corinthians 3:9-17; Matthew 14:22-34

          Many people today do not have a solid foundation for their lives.  We live in a time and place where it is very tempting to forget that there is more to life than getting what we want, on our own terms and when we want it. The problem, however, is that if we live simply to satisfy our own immediate desires, we risk destroying ourselves and those we love.

Saint Paul told the church at Corinth in today’s epistle reading that they were God’s temple, built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.   As we know from his letters to the Corinthians, they had fallen into so many terrible problems because they had not been living like that at all.  Prideful divisions, gross immorality, and confusion about the most basic Christian beliefs and practices had profoundly weakened them.  They were in as dangerous a position as St. Peter in today’s gospel lesson when he focused more on the wind and the waves than on the Savior.  He began to sink because he had stepped off the foundation of faith into the abyss of fear and doubt.  The Lord said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” as He rescued him from drowning.

A common distortion of Christianity today is to think that the faith is all about helping us get what we want in this world on our own terms.  That may mean that we want to feel a certain way about ourselves, to be entertained, or to have a better social life.  It may mean that we want a religious justification for doing whatever we want to do or to use God to achieve a political or national goal.  Regardless of how appealing such aims may be, we must never substitute them for the one true foundation, our Lord Jesus Christ.  If we try to use Him as a means to do our own will, we will turn our backs on our true identity as God’s temple and instead fall into the bottomless pit of worshiping ourselves.  If we step away from Him as our true foundation, we will begin to sink just like Peter.

Today, however, we have an opportunity to live more faithfully as God’s temple, built on the foundation of our Savior.  That is because we observe “St. Timon Sunday” in our Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America, as we begin to take up a collection for the relief of our brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran in Syria. St. Timon certainly built solidly on our true foundation as one of the seventy apostles sent out by the Lord and one of the original deacons mentioned in Acts (Acts 6:5).  He was the first bishop of what is now the city of Bosra, and he died as a martyr.  He played a key role in evangelizing a region where our Lord Himself often ministered (Matt.4:25) and where St. Paul took refuge after he escaped from Damascus following his conversion. (Gal. 1:15-18)   Especially as Antiochian Orthodox Christians, we must give thanks for how St. Timon’s ministry enabled the Church to flourish in ways from which we benefit to this very day.  God used his work, along with that of so many generations of faithful Christians in the Middle East, to bring us into the fullness of the faith in the Orthodox Church.

This past week over 200 people died in terrorist attacks in Sweida, where the cathedral of the Archdiocese is located. Under the guidance of His Eminence, Metropolitan Saba the Church continues to do all that it can to minister faithfully and to help those in need. Probably at least half a million people have died in Syria since the start of the present conflict seven years ago, and millions have become refugees or internally displaced persons.  Many clergy and laity have become martyrs and confessors. We continue to pray in every service for Metropolitan Paul and Archbishop John, who were abducted in 2013.

Though they are far away geographically, we are members together in the Body of Christ with our suffering brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran.  Differences in language, culture, and nationality are completely irrelevant when it comes to the Church as God’s temple, for we share a common life and foundation in Jesus Christ.  “St. Timon Sunday” gives us an opportunity to turn away from the self-centered illusion that our life in Him should focus on fulfilling our own personal needs and desires.   Remember that the Savior came “not to be served, but to serve.” (Matt. 20:28) St. Timon offered his life for the flourishing of the Church even to the point of death as a martyr, and we enjoy the blessings of his ministry to this very day.  We will ground ourselves more squarely on the one true foundation of our Lord as we embrace His love and mercy by prayerfully making whatever offering we can over the next weeks to help the Church in Syria.  In doing so, we will show our gratitude to those who have shared the Orthodox faith with us.

It would be possible, of course, to look at the ongoing violence in Syria and conclude that nothing we do would make any difference.  Perhaps responding to such large conflicts is a matter for nations, armies, and international organizations, not the members of small parishes.  Accepting that temptation, however, would make us just like Peter when he was so distracted by the force of the wind and the size of the waves that he took his eyes off Christ, lost faith, and began to sink.   He had lost his foundation at that point, and we will lose ours if we allow any problem or challenge in life to turn us away from humble trust that the Lord remains with us, bringing good out of evil even to the point of conquering death itself.  If we really believe that, then we will make our small offerings to Him each day of our lives, offering ourselves for Him to do with as He sees fit to manifest His love, mercy, and holiness in our world of corruption.

In other words, we must always live as God’s temple, the Church, which is a place of sacrifice.  Our Lord offered Himself for the salvation of the world and we unite ourselves to His great Self-Offering in every celebration of the Divine Liturgy.  The bread and wine that we offer become His Body and Blood, which we receive for the healing of our souls.  If we commune with Christ, then we must live as those in communion with Him as we make every aspect of our life in this world a sign of His salvation.  His Kingdom, of course, does not come through conventional worldly power, but through the faithfulness of those who humbly ground their lives on Him as their one true foundation.

No one thought at the time that our Lord’s crucifixion and burial had any great significance for the future. The deaths of martyrs like St. Timon seemed pointless and foolish to most observers.  As St. Paul wrote, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)  Through what seemed like the predictable end of yet another failed Messiah, the Savior conquered death through His glorious resurrection.  Now we must have faith that He will use our small offerings to heal and bless the suffering people of our world as a sign of His Kingdom.  That is true not only as we donate on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Syria, but as we take the steps we have the strength to take for the healing of our own souls.  No matter how fierce the winds and the waves may be, we must remain grounded on Christ as our true foundation through humble faith.  That is the only way not to sink like a stone.

The Importance of Being Faithful in Small Things: Homily for St. Mary Magdalene on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost and the Eighth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

1 Corinthians 1:10-17; Matthew 14:14-22

It is very easy for us to overlook the importance of small, routine things that do not seem remarkable at all.  It is much more appealing to focus on larger matters that we think have great significance.  The problem, of course, is that it is in the seemingly insignificant details of daily life that our true character is formed and revealed.  If we overlook the small challenges we encounter each day, we will ignore what matters most.   

Today we commemorate Saint Mary Magdalene, who has the exalted title of Myrrh-Bearer and Equal to the Apostles.  After the Lord had cast seven demons out of her, Mary became one of the women disciples who supported Him and the twelve apostles from their own resources. (Luke 8:1-3).  She remained with the Lord at His crucifixion and was one of the women who saw the stone rolled away and heard from the angel the good news of the resurrection when they went to the tomb early on the morning of Pascha. St. John’s gospel records that the risen Christ appeared to her as she wept at His empty grave. She was the first to proclaim His resurrection when she told the unbelievably good news to the apostles that she had actually seen the Lord. (John 20:11-18)  Mary Magdalene continued to preach His resurrection for the rest of her life, even to the Roman Emperor Tiberius, to whom she gave a red egg with the words “Christ is risen!”  She then went to Ephesus to minister with St. John the Theologian, where she died peacefully.

St. Mary Magdalene was prepared for her uniquely glorious role as a witness and preacher of the Lord’s resurrection because of her daily faithfulness to the Savior during His earthly ministry.  He had set her free from domination by the forces of evil and she then followed Him with deep devotion, doing what she could to help Him and the apostles.  The daily details of doing so were surely not glamorous, comfortable, or easy. The Savior had “nowhere to lay His head” (Luke 9:58) and the apostles left behind their livelihoods, possessions, and families to follow Him.  Like them, Mary surely adopted a transient way of life as they went with Him from town to town and shared in the many challenges of the ministry of the Kingdom.

In the ultimate time of crisis when Christ was nailed to the cross and all seemed lost, Mary bravely stood by Him as He died.  She went to the tomb in the early hours of Sunday morning in order to do the sad work of anointing His dead body as a final act of love. At the time, those actions probably did not seem like grand gestures that would secure her memory as anyone particularly important. They were simply the acts of faithfulness and love that were still available to her. She sought nothing for herself other than to serve the Savior, even when He was dead and no one expected the tomb to be empty.  She did not serve herself at all, but only her Lord.  That is how she was made worthy to see and speak with the risen Christ, and then to proclaim the good news to the apostles.        

Throughout the period of her life in which she followed Christ, Mary probably often felt like the disciples in today’s gospel reading.  They had thousands of people to feed with only five loaves and two fish.  They felt greatly inadequate in the face of the needs of a hungry multitude.  As a woman who had been possessed by demons and was then following Christ in His itinerant ministry, Mary knew that she was not in charge or at the center of attention.  Accomplishing large or impressive goals was surely not her aim.  All that she could do was to offer her seemingly insignificant life to the Lord as best she could, which included supporting His ministry from her resources and learning from Him as she followed along each day, regardless of the challenges.

In our gospel reading, the Lord took, blessed, and broke the bread, and then gave it to the disciples to distribute to the people.  Miraculously, there was so much food that thousands had enough to eat with twelve basketsful left over.  Christ did not require the disciples to figure out the logistics of how to feed so many people.  He did not insist that they do something really spectacular. All that He required was that they faithfully offered the small amount that they had to Him.  His blessing did the rest.

   That is precisely how Mary Magdalene lived her life and became a glorious saint.  The Lord did not require her to do something impressive on a grand scale, but only to be faithful to Him each day in the circumstances that she faced.  Mary knew that she owed everything to the Lord Who had delivered her from demons, and then she offered herself to support Him and the apostles in their ministry as best she could.  And when seemingly small acts of devotion like staying with Christ as He died and then going to the tomb to anoint His dead body enabled her to become the first to witness and proclaim His resurrection, there was surely no one more surprised than Mary Magdalene.

We should learn from her holy and humble example not to ignore, reject, or diminish the importance of the seemingly small opportunities for serving Christ that we have each day.  Our lives do not go from one exciting and spectacular adventure to another.  Familiar routines and responsibilities fill our days.  God calls us to offer ourselves to Him faithfully and fully as we are, not as we fantasize about how we would like our lives to be.  Fantasy remains precisely that, an escape from reality.  If we do not take advantage of the small opportunities for serving Christ that we encounter each day in unremarkable ways, then we will never truly offer our lives to Him. 

The obedience to which the Lord calls us probably will not seem especially noteworthy.  Devoting a few minutes each day to prayer and Bible reading, for example, requires only a small offering of our time, energy, and will.  The same is true for just about every spiritual discipline of the Christian life, from attending services to fasting, taking Confession, and helping someone in need.  We often magnify those offerings in our imagination to the point that we welcome excuses not to make them because we think that they will be so extraordinarily difficult.  When we face that temptation, it is helpful to remember that God does not sternly require an exalted level of spiritual perfection in everything that we do.  We simply need to offer ourselves to Him as best we can in our daily challenges, such as: holding our tongues when want to speak out of anger and judgment; turning our attention away from entertainment, conversations, and thoughts that inflame our passions; and limiting our self-absorption in order to become sensitive to the needs of others.  Likewise, He calls none of us to fulfill every ministry of the Church, but does call us all to use our gifts in strengthening the Body of Christ.   

The same Lord Who fed thousands with a tiny bit of food feeds us with His own Body and Blood in every celebration of the Eucharist.  Those who commune with the One Who offered Himself for the salvation of the world have an obligation to offer every dimension of their lives for union with Him in holiness.  That is precisely how Saint Mary Magdalene became a Myrrh-Bearer and Equal to the Apostles, the first to proclaim the good news of the resurrection.  She did not set out to do something great, but simply to make a faithful offering of her life to the Lord. Let us follow her blessed, holy example as we serve Christ with humility in the routine matters of our lives each day.  These are the actions that reveal who we are before God.  

The World Needs Light, Not More Darkness: Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in the Orthodox Church

Titus 3: 8-15; Matthew 5:  14-19

It is not hard to find examples of Christians whose behavior disappoints and scandalizes us.  Whether people we know personally or simply those we know about, it is easy to find ourselves thinking that others hardly seem to be “the light of the world.” There is a powerful temptation, of course, to point our finger at others for not beaming radiantly with the holy light of our Lord.  Before we even begin to think about how our neighbors are doing, however, we must first take a painfully honest look at our own souls.  For when we see ourselves clearly in the brilliant light of our Lord’s holiness, the darkness within us will become quite apparent.  Instead of welcoming into our hearts judgmental thoughts about how others are filled with darkness, we must focus on exposing our own diseased souls to the healing presence of the Lord.  Otherwise, we will become just like the hypocritical, self-righteous judges who rejected the Savior.  

            Most of us are very good, however, at finding ways to hide in the darkness.  Like the people St. Paul described in his letter to St. Titus, we would rather focus on foolish arguments and disputes that “are unprofitable and futile.”  Instead of investing our time and energy in “good deeds, so as to help cases of urgent need,” we obsess about problems beyond our control and fall into fantasy about the wickedness of those we consider to be our enemies and the bad things that might happen to us in the future. This way of thinking is simply an invitation to weaken ourselves spiritually to the point that we will shed no light at all in our darkened world.  It leads to shutting the light of Christ out of our souls in ways that result inevitably in slavery to the darkness.  When we live that way, we will be anything but a lamp that draws others to give glory to God.   Instead, we will scandalize and disappoint our neighbors by our poor witness for Christ.

            Today we commemorate the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.  They proclaimed that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human, one Person Who unites in Himself both divinity and humanity.  They were not concerned with abstract points of theology, but with the pressing need to reject false teachings that made it impossible to proclaim how the Son of God could bring corrupt human beings into eternal life.  Apart from a Savior Who is both fully divine and fully one of us, we would remain lost in the darkness of this world.  We need the God-Man to bring us into His light.

Unfortunately, there remains much within us that would rather hide from the light of Christ.  In contrast to His brilliance, we do not want our darkness to be exposed.  Consequently, we often would rather that He were merely a great religious personality, moral teacher, or political leader than the God-Man.  Then we could more easily convince ourselves that we are already holy because we serve some cause that operates according to the corrupt standards of our world of darkness.  Or we could rest easy that we have this virtue or have done that good deed, which at least makes us better than whoever we view as our enemies.  How dangerous and subtle is the temptation to blind ourselves to the truth about where we stand before God by convincing ourselves that we are on the side of the angels because we have built ourselves up by putting others down.  If there is no higher standard than how we think we compare to others or how we serve what is popular in our time and place, then it will not be hard to convince ourselves that we really do not need much of a Savior.

If we go down that road, however, we will never become the light of the world.  Our lives will not be different from what is conventional in our society.  Instead of becoming radiant with the holy light of Christ, we will simply embody the darkness that the world already knows all too well.  There is already too much so-called Christianity that does precisely that. No matter what we say we believe, we must unite ourselves to Christ in holiness in order to avoid turning the faith into some kind self-serving religious ideology that will illumine no one.

In complete contrast to such idolatry, the Savior called His disciples to embody a righteousness that exceeded that of the hypocritical religious legalists who had distorted the faith of Israel in order build up their own worldly power.  He fulfilled the Old Testament law in a way that demanded purity of heart, that invited people to become “perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48)  Instead of congratulating themselves for not murdering others, His disciples were to find healing for the anger and hatred that are at the root of broken human relationships.  Instead of resting content with avoiding physical adultery, they were to turn away from lust and all unholy sexual desire.  Instead of believing they were justified in responding in kind to their enemies, they were to love and forgive them.

Christ could speak to His disciples in this way because He is not simply a teacher giving them a code of conduct that they could interpret according to conventional standards.  No, He is the God-Man and described what it means to share personally in His life, to be become radiant with His holy light like an iron left in the fire of the divine glory.  Our Savior, fully divine and fully human, invites us to nothing less than that.

No wonder, then, that as we see ourselves more clearly in His light, we will become more aware of the darkness that remains within us.  That experience often presents the temptation to distract ourselves from the uncomfortable truth that we need healing beyond what we had previously imagined and that we cannot give ourselves.  Some abandon the spiritual life at this point, thinking that there is no hope for them at all.  Others fill their minds with “stupid controversies” that “are unprofitable and futile” as ways of taking their attention off their own brokenness.  For example, being constantly angry at others or identifying the faith with worldly agendas that do not require the healing of the soul are appealing ways of ignoring our need for growth in holiness.

Far better, however, is to use every glimpse of the darkness in our souls for our salvation by opening ourselves more fully to the healing light of Christ.  Frequent use of the Jesus Prayer, regular Confession, and embracing the humility expressed in the prayers of preparation to receive the Eucharist are powerful means of gaining the strength to offer our brokenness to the Lord for healing.  The same is true of asking forgiveness of those we have wronged, forgiving those who have wronged us, fasting according to our spiritual and physical strength, and going out of our way to serve the lonely, sick, and needy. 

Ultimately, our choice is either to remain in the darkness or to enter more fully into the light of the God-Man.  He alone can transform us from those blinded by our usual distractions to those who shine like an illumined city on a hill as a sign of the world’s salvation.  So instead of finding ways to excuse or justify ourselves, let us have the courage to see our darkness in His light and to refuse to let anything hold us back from being illumined until we shine brightly with the Light of the world, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.

          

What We Have in Common with the Great Martyr Procopius and the Paralyzed Man: Homily for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost and the Sixth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

Romans 12:6-14; Matthew 9:1-8

           It is tempting to fall into pessimism about ourselves.  We know our own personal failings quite well and often find it difficult to sustain hope for our own healing.  One of the many reasons that the example of the Saints is so important is that they are living proof that there is hope for us all in Jesus Christ. Just as He enabled the paralyzed man in today’s gospel lesson to stand up, carry his bed, and walk home, the Lord can strengthen us for a life that shines with holiness.

We remember today Saint Procopius, a high-ranking Roman officer originally named Neanias who was on his way to persecute Christians when he saw a glowing cross in the sky and heard the Lord say to him, “I am Jesus, the crucified Son of God. By this sign that you saw, conquer your enemies and My peace will be with you.”  Disobeying his military orders, Neanias went with his soldiers to Jerusalem. For confessing Christ and refusing to worship the pagan gods, he endured terrible tortures.  While in prison, the Lord appeared to him again, baptized him, and gave him the name Procopius.  He then taught other prisoners the faith and prepared them for martyrdom; their example drew Procopius’ pagan mother to join them in making the ultimate witness for Christ.  When Procopius himself was brought to the place of execution, he prayed for widows, orphans, the poor, and especially the flourishing of the Church before being beheaded.

It is easy for us to forget how absolutely shocking the transformation of the pagan Roman officer Neanias into the Great Martyr Procopius must have been in that time and place.  He had served the Emperor Diocletian in his ferocious campaign against Christians, whom the Romans saw as traitors because they refused to do their civic duty in worshiping the gods believed to protect the empire.  Then Procopius completely turned his back on the religion and way of life that he had known.  He broke the unjust laws of Rome, abandoned his esteemed military position, and took a path that he knew would lead to torture and execution. He now served a Lord Whom the Romans had crucified as a traitor. Procopius’ conversion was every bit as shocking as that of St. Paul, who himself had been a strident persecutor of Christians until the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

Like the paralyzed man in today’s gospel reading, Procopius before his conversion had been stuck in a place of profound weakness.  He had been enslaved to blindly following the laws and customs of his society to the point of persecuting the followers of the Lord as hated traitors.  He had been enslaved to idolatry and the fear of death, and lacked the spiritual health necessary to see the cross of Christ as anything but shameful.  But when the Lord appeared to Him, he embraced the strength necessary to conquer his true enemies. He no longer saw his true enemies as alleged opponents of Rome, but as own sins that had wedded him to serving false gods.  When he responded with obedience to the Lord’s command, Christ strengthened him further through baptism in which he died to sin and rose up into a new life of holiness.  The Savior did for Procopius just what He had done for the paralyzed man, forgiving his sins and enabling him to become a shocking witness of the power of His mercy and grace.

Though we often overlook it, Christ has done the same for us all in baptism as He did for the formerly paralyzed man and Procopius.   As St. Paul wrote, “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:4)  By putting on Christ like a garment in baptism, we have died to the corruption of sin and been restored to the ancient dignity of those who bear God’s image and likeness.  Our sources of strength as members of Christ’s Body extend to receiving personally the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Chrismation.  In receiving the Eucharist, we are nourished with the Savior’s own Body and Blood to live in communion with Him.  In Confession, Christ Himself forgives our sins and heals the damage we have done to our souls.

The Lord does not call everyone to become a literal martyr or to rise up from being physically paralyzed.  He does, however, call and enable each of us to serve Him as faithfully as we can, given our current state of spiritual health and life circumstances.  That is why St. Paul wrote in today’s epistle reading, “having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.”  We do not all have the same strengths and abilities, and God calls people to serve Him in different ways.  Regardless of the particulars, our common calling is clear:  “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

If fulfilling those commands seems beyond your ability today, do not despair. We must never excuse ourselves from living faithfully because we still have lots of room for growth in holiness.  It is a form of pride to insist that we will serve God only on our own terms of imagined perfection.  Perhaps the formerly paralyzed man later stumbled and fell under the weight of his bed or because his legs were not used to walking. What is important is that he still moved forward. The martyrs surely struggled to overcome the natural human fear of torture and death in making the ultimate witness for Christ, but they still died for Him.  And we must take our small, faltering steps toward the healing of our souls as best we presently can, calling humbly upon the Lord to sustain us by His strength and make up what is lacking in our souls.

We will never know His strength, however, if we do not wrestle with our own weakness.  If we abandon prayer because our minds wander, we will never grow in our ability to turn away from distracting thoughts as we stand before the Lord.  If we give up trying to forgive people who have wronged us because of bad memories about them, we will never learn to turn away from obsessing about the wrongs of others.  If we simply accept that we are slaves to our desires for food, sex, money, or the praise of others, we will never grow in our ability to direct our hearts to their ultimate fulfillment in God.  Even when we cannot possibly see how we are making any progress at all in the Christian life, we must do what we are capable of doing to serve the Lord faithfully.  That is how, in our weakness and humility, we may open ourselves to His strength and healing.

There is a reference to St. Procopius in the Orthodox marriage service, in which the bride and groom wear crowns of martyrdom.  That is because he prepared his fellow prisoners to become martyrs.  This reference shows that marriage is to be a witness of mutual fidelity and self-sacrifice as a couple makes their life together an icon of the Kingdom of God.  Even though divorce is common and all marriages have their struggles, husbands and wives may still offer themselves to God and one another in ways that serve as an epiphany of our salvation in Christ.  Divorce, widowhood, and singleness present other very profound opportunities for dying to self and pursuing growth in holiness.

Regardless of marital status or any other circumstances, we may all bear witness in our own lives to Christ’s healing mercy as we die to the power of sin and embrace more fully the new life He has brought to the world. Remembering the holy example of the Great Martyr Procopius, let us all obey the Savior’s command to the paralyzed man to rise, take up our beds, and walk.  That is what He expects of us every day of our lives.